


Scattered Hearts

by NorroenDyrd



Series: My Precious Heathen [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Crestwood, Deductions, Dialogue Heavy, Dragon Age Quest: Promise of Destruction, Embarrassment, F/M, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Guilty Pleasures, Hangover, Haven (Dragon Age), Helpful Cole, Helpful Cole (Dragon Age), Inner Dialogue, Internal Monologue, Love Confessions, Love Letters, POV Cole (Dragon Age), Realization, Secret Admirer, Secret Crush, Separation Anxiety, Shame, Skyhold, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6065553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Cassandra has been recently wounded, Lavellan goes off to meet Hawke in Crestwood without her. She is left to skulk around restlessly, and suddenly finds herself solving the mystery of the anonymous love notes she has been getting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scattered Hearts

This is foolish, Cassandra tells herself repeatedly, while pacing up and down the top floor of the armoury, where she settled in makeshift quarters after the Inquisition began restoring Skyhold.  
  
All of this is so bloody foolish that she barely has words for describing it. Not only this situation she has landed in; not only how she has been treated: first, fawned over like a fragile antique, and then grounded like a child, excluded from the Inquisitor's adventuring team, simply because she was recently wounded - but the way she feels about it as well!  
  
Maker, she should be angry - she should be livid with the blasted elf for being so patronizing towards her! The way he looked at her while they were discussing the Seekers' secrets - evidently more concerned about the state of her bandages than about what she had to say; the way he tiptoed around her, as though she was about to faint, as though she was some airy-fairy Orlesian damsel in dire need of a frilly parasol; the way he deliberately passed her over while selecting companions to take with him on a meeting with Hawke and his Warden contract, and instructed her to stay in bed and rest; and most outrageously of all, the way he told the agents around Skyhold to keep an eye on her least she try to sneak out to Crestwood after him - it should have made her want to punch him! To ram him into the wall like she (almost) did Varric!  
  
Yes, the late Lord Seeker may have run his blade through her during their previous mission; yes, she may have lost a certain quantity of blood; yes, the healers may have put... not a small amount of effort into treating her wound... But that is no reason to spurn her like Lavellan did! He may be the leader of the Inquisition - but she got him where he is now; she elevated him to this position of power! It is disrespectful - ungrateful! - to lock her in at home (such as it is), as though she were a sick girl and he were an overprotective parent! If this does not merit her wrath, she does not know what does.  
  
But this is just the thing: she does not feel particularly wrathful. Exasperated, maybe; offended - but not as enraged as she expected herself to be. No, instead of being angry, she is, first and foremost, worried. Quite stupidly so.  
  
This is the first time that Lavellan has gone out into the wilderness without her by his side. That is, if one did not count the time when he was separated from her and the others after the fall of Haven. And she was restless even then, when she and the future Inquisitor had barely started to realize that they actually no longer wanted to rip out each other's throats.  
  
She can still remember stubbornly trekking out into the darkness to look for him whenever their trudging caravan stopped to make camp. Kneading the wet, slushy air with her arms; blinking off snow in an attempt to see past her own nose; and pointedly ignoring Cullen whenever he tentatively suggested, somewhere out of billowy nothingness, that 'the Herald might have... uhm... not made it'. Refusing to listen, snapping at him, brushing him off, because she did not need the Commander to provide a finishing note to the painful chant that was already drumming inside her heart: Mother; Father; Antony; Most Holy; Regalyan... Lavellan.  
  
Maker, those had to be some of the worst moments in her life - and recently, she was forced to relive the same crippling fear of not seeing Lavellan alive again... Of his name being added to the litany of people that she had lost.  
  
Not long before news had arrived of the missing Seekers' last known location, Lavellan was seeing to another request of hers: dealing with threats to the peace and order which had been neglected in the midst of all this insanity, what with the Breach and with the Lord Seeker... doing what he did. And while disposing of a group of rogue Templars, the irresponsible little elf decided (in a fit of ludicrous boyish show-offiness) that he could take on the entire lot of them in battle by himself. A lone mage in a leather coat and a most impractical silken shirt - against a dozen desperate men in full (albeit tarnished) armour. The recollection of how that ended still makes Cassandra flinch.  
  
The Inquisition healers, called to their aid by the omnipresent Cole, took an excruciatingly long time to arrive; and while they were on their way, she had to suffer through sitting by Lavellan's side, her heart sinking as she saw the light of life fade away from his eyes, and her mind torn apart by harrowing images of herself and Leliana keeping vigil next to his funeral pyre.  
  
And now, these images seem to be returning, this time for no sound reason at all, no matter how hard she tries to hold them back, scolding herself through her teeth.  
  
This is foolish, foolish, foolish! They have already been to Crestwood and cleared the area; they have dealt with all the demons, the bandits, the undead, and even with what Bull so eloquently described as 'one whoop-arse dragon'! There is nothing to fear; Lavellan is just going to track down Hawke, and talk to him, and then return to Skyhold to plan their next move!  
  
Yes, but what if the party gets ambushed? What if those Red Templars show up again? What if the Wardens, the ones that were tasked with apprehending Hawke's contact for asking too many questions, get to the meeting spot faster than Lavellan - and this results in a confrontation? What if the Inquisition's newly established encampment attracts more bandits? What if that dragon's brood is still somewhere out there, ready to destroy those who killed their mother? What if Lavellan decides to take one of his infamous downhill shortcuts and breaks a limb (again)? What if there is a druffalo stampede, for Maker's sake?! She has no way of knowing - she is forced to languish here, while Lavellan is out there... unchaperoned!  
  
Andraste's holy pyre, now who is talking like an overprotective parent?! No, her reaction to being left behind is absolutely unreasonable. And embarrassing. She would much rather run around hitting walls and cursing Lavellan's name than fretting over how he is faring without her. This - this is no better than his pointless fussing over her wound. Wait... Could that mean that he was feeling the same way as she is now? That he was... worried about her? No, she shouldn't think that; she should keep such frivolous flights of fancy in check.    
  
She had better find herself something to do before all this foolishness turns her head completely. Maybe sitting down with a book will help her collect her scattered thoughts. It had better not be a particularly smutty book, though: last time she read one, she kept mentally projecting the Inquisitor's face onto all the exaggeratedly muscular male lovers that the heroine...  entertained.  
  
Heaving a resigned sigh, Cassandra lowers herself onto her bedroll and reaches forward to her comforting little pile of novels - both various parts of Varric's opus magnum and assorted romance fiction recommended by the Randy Dowager. When she hovers her fingers over the rainbow of colourful book spines, mulling over which one to choose, she notices that something is amiss. One of her precious little times is gone - someone has plundered her smutty treasure trove!  
  
Cassandra frowns and draws back her hand, clenching her fingers into a fist; then, huffs loudly, pulls herself to her feet, and storms off in sweeping strides, racing downstairs and across the courtyard to the main building. From there, it does not take her too long to march through Solas' rotunda (empty now, because Lavellan has taken his fellow mage to meet Hawke... instead of her!) and to climb the stone staircase to the library, where, as she is fairly certain, the culprit resides.  
  
'If my books make you so dumb, Dorian, why do you keep stealing them?' Cassandra demands, looming over the Tevinter, who is reclining leisurely in his favourite armchair, apparently absorbed in reading.  
  
'I had to get the vile taste of the library's anti-Imperial propaganda out of my mouth. Anything was going to do - even pointless drivel like this waste of pulp and ink here,' Dorian replies pleasantly, looking up at her. 'I was meaning to return your little paper abomination to you presently, but then I got distracted by a... rather intriguing detail in its contents'.  
  
The colour ebbs rapidly from Cassandra's face. Oh Maker - no! This... This is the one, isn't it? Of course it is! Trust her luck - of all the books the conniving magister had to steal, he chose the one where she hid...  
  
'Most fascinating missives, these,' Dorian observes, gesturing at the book that lies open on his knees.  
  
Tucked in between its dog-eared pages, are several slivers of paper, cut out in the form of (somewhat asymmetric) little hearts. Each heart is covered in squiggly, clumsy letters, which spell out a curious range of messages, such as,  
  
_**'The day was promising to be dreary. But then, I saw you smile'.**_  
  
_**'I cannot as much as say your name inside my mind without my heart skipping a beat'.**_  
  
_**'You are a diamond: strong, and pure, and rare, and cherished'.**_  
  
_**'I look back at my life before I met you, and everything seems so incomplete'.**_  
  
_**'Please start today by acknowledging that you are an astounding woman'.**_  
  
_**'I wish I could voice what is in my heart'.**_  
  
_**'You will never know this, but I relish every chance to bask in your beauty'.**_  
  
There are many, many more, peeking out of the book like little heart-shaped leaves, not one of them blank. Dorian fingers through them, one eyebrow raised, while Cassandra stands glued to one spot, her eyes darting from the Tevinter to various objects she can hit him with.  
  
'Quite a collection you have amassed here, Seeker Cassandra,' Dorian chuckles at length, squinting at the woman's face as her drained pallor is slowly replaced by a wave of stifling crimson.  
  
'These are not yours to gawk at,' Cassandra finally manages to wheeze, unglueing herself from the floor and reaching forward to grab the scandalous tome.  
  
She has half-expected the Tevinter to attempt to hold on to it or tug it out of her grasp, just for the sake of adding up to her torment. But instead, he just sits back and watches her pull the book close to her chest and step away from him, like a mother protecting her child. And the smug, cat-like look of his face makes it obvious that he will never, ever let this rest.  
  
'Do you know their identity? Your avid admirer's?' he asks, steepling his fingers together.  
  
'What? No!' Cassandra responds hurriedly. 'Why should I even care about this? This is obviously some sort of prank, or an attempt to distract me from my duties, or - '  
  
'If you truly believed what you just said, you wouldn't have stashed these little hearts into one of your favourite pieces of trashy literature,’ Dorian points out. 'And since you hold them so dear, you should have at least tried to investigate the source of this lavish affection. I know I would have sought the sender out, in your place - if only just for the sake of shaking that person's hand and commending their choice of idol'.  
  
He sighs in mock woe.  
  
'But alas, all the fan mail I have ever received has mostly amounted to bills and death threats. Which is flattering, of course, but not as entertaining as your experience'.  
  
'So you find this entertaining, do you?' Cassandra says dryly, before turning to leave. All too eager to return her little hearts to where they belong, she decides to refrain from hitting Dorian... For now.  
  
'I will not have you laughing at my expense any further!'  
  
'I can hazard a pretty good guess as to who is behind this,' the Tevinter calls out after her, just as she is about to head off downstairs. 'And I was wondering... Do you suspect the same, or are you still as delightfully in denial as ever?'  
  
Cassandra freezes in mid-step and turns back slowly.  
  
'In denial of what?'  
  
Dorian acknowledges her return of attention with a nod and a small smirk, and begins his explanation.  
  
'If you take a closer look at the writing, you will be quick to notice that the mysterious appreciator of your fine self was not holding the quill in their main hand. The letters are all so terribly askew that I can almost feel the pain of tracing them'.  
  
'What if it is a stable hand or peasant refugee - someone who does not know his or her letters very well?' Cassandra asks, coming up to Dorian, placing the open book on the small table next to his chair, and tracing her finger carefully across the paper hearts, following the jagged lines of the messages. All the while, her cheeks still keep burning.  
  
'Come now,' Dorian shakes his head. 'Just consider some of the vocabulary! "Acknowledge"; "Astounding"; "Cherished"... Do these sound like the words a stable hand would use? With all due respect - certainly not here in the South!'  
  
'You might be right...' Cassandra says slowly - reluctant to indulge the Tevinter, but at the same time increasingly absorbed by solving the riddle before her.  
  
She holds the clumsy little hearts dear, that is true - but she has never pondered so much over their origin, not once since they started appearing (which had to be... almost as soon as they discovered Skyhold). She was too embarrassed to.  
  
Whenever she came across a new note, usually placed carefully on her pillow or slipped underneath her plate at dinnertime, she would just look it over, and smile, and then tuck it hastily into the book. To do anything more would be... improper.  
  
That does not mean she has never been curious - she did find it rather odd how one moment there would be nothing suspicious going on, and the next she would find herself holding a slip of paper with yet another warm, candid confession. She has just never dared to give her curiosity free reign. Until now.  
  
'But if it really is as you say,' she goes on, ‘If the letters are so misshapen because the person has switched hands... Why do that? To disguise their handwriting? But to what end?'  
  
'The answer is simple, my dear Cassandra,' Dorian's smirk grows broader. 'Elementary even. The sender is someone you know very well. Someone whose handwriting you are familiar with. And someone who is too ashamed to be more forthcoming... And as it happens, a description of this profound shame, along with something very close in meaning to these wondrous missives, came out of the sender's mouth not long before your sojourn to Caer Oswin'.  
  
Cassandra straightens up, her chest and stomach suddenly filled with an odd, fluttering sensation, as though she has swallowed a swarm of butterflies. The Tevinter had better not be leading her on!  
  
'You - you spoke to the person who did this?' she asks.  
  
Dorian nods.  
  
'My conversation with the sense took place while they - or rather, he was leaning against Bull and myself, so addled by drink that he would have confessed every single one of his secrets to us if we encouraged him. Which we... did not _not_ do'.  
  
Cassandra inhales sharply and gives Dorian one of her most expressive glares.  
  
'You!' she cries out. 'You were there! At Herald's Rest! During that disgraceful.... orgy Bull threw after we slew the dragon in Crestwood!'  
  
'That I was,' Dorian confirms. 'I was one of the more fortunate souls that managed to take off into the background the moment you arrived on the scene and started smiting heathens. Later on, Bull and I resumed the party, but that is neither here nor there...'  
  
Cassandra begins to pace restlessly, just as she did back in her quarters, not really listening to Dorian - as she is too dazed by the overwhelming torrent of things that have started to make sense... and yet make no sense at all.  
  
'Lavellan,' she mutters to herself. 'Lavellan! After I... rescued him from Bull, he kept telling me... certain... flattering things... He was delirious, of course, but...'  
  
She halts abruptly and glares at Dorian again.  
  
'No! This is preposterous! He is the Inquisitor! He would not waste his time distributing... love letters like a schoolboy!'  
  
'I helped,' an all too familiar voice pipes in, as a lanky figure in a grotesque hat weaves itself out of hazy smoke behind the tall back of Dorian's armchair. 'He told me not to tell, but you were close to knowing'.  
  
'Now that is endearing!'  
  
Dorian claps his hands together in a deliberate show of glee, while Cassandra hides her face behind her palm.  
  
Suddenly, all those sweet words, scrawled across the lopsided hearts, appear to her in a completely new light. It was absurd to think the messages were sincere; to smile dreamily at them as she did; to keep them close to her. The elf could not actually have meant any of this!..  
  
'So this was a prank, after all...' she says grimly. 'And Lavellan enlisted the help of a vanishing spirit to pull it off!'  
  
'No! It was no prank!' Cole exclaims in agitation, looking up at Cassandra with those uncanny blue eyes of his. She feels unnerved, as she often does in his presence - but at the same time, she knows that the spirit is being truthful.  
  
As Cole speaks further, his voice acquires its usual rhythmic cadence, rushing by like a rapid stream. Cassandra and Dorian listen to him in silence, trying their best to keep up; and, bizarre as it sounds, by the end of his speech the Tevinter appears almost as moved as the Seeker.  
  
_He is where he always is, hands flying on griffon wings, never resting, ready, resolute. The world is hazy, spinning, pulsing, but he is solid, he is steady. He will make things take shape. He will give comfort, council, clarity._  
  
_'Still hungover from last night? Bull sure knows how to mix his drinks!'_  
  
_The Resolve thinks it is just the dizzy memory of the wine, writing lines in his face, squeezing his chest with huge, heavy fingers. But there is more than that; there is a thorn, throbbing, hurting. It needs to come out, or he will scream._  
  
_'I made such a fool of myself, in front of Cassandra. I don't remember half of what I said, but she must despise me right now. And I regret taking your advice... about the notes'._  
  
_At the dawn of Skyhold, the Resolve guided him, schooled him, showed, shared... Gave him glimpses of a world where women fluttered around a man who is no more: moths drawn to flaming armour when the sky was rainier._  
  
_The Resolve spoke, back then, before, and he listened, he learned, he longed; he found me, and I helped. I came and went, small and quiet, and left the notes that he wrote._  
  
_Little paper hearts fluttering like a blissful sigh. Crooked letters spelling pure thoughts. He could be himself when he wrote them. Smiling, smitten, soaring. He did not mind the tears dimming his eyes, as the twists of his hand woke the Fade in his skin... And then, he did mind. Angry, snapping, changing, his chest filled with shame like salty water._  
  
_The shame is still there when he returns to the Resolve, sick and staggering, wobbling on legs that still remember how the tavern danced. The shame laps and froths and burns him, burns him till he sways and moans and shuts his eyes, trapping himself in darkness._  
  
_'This was all pointless! All I did was disgrace myself! Sending Cole to shower her in stupid little hearts; trying to impress her with a pile of Templar corpses; slobbering drunkenly at her feet... Damn it, Blackwall, why did you encourage me? You, and Varric, and Dorian, and the others?! She will never care about me! Why should she? Why should she care about a knife-eared apostate who is nowhere close to her age and doesn't believe in her god?'_  
  
_The Resolve does not reply, silenced, interrupted. Swift feet rushing towards the stables, a gasping breath, a frantic gesture, a voice calling for the Inquisitor... A message has arrived on the Nightingale's wings. The scouts have found what they looked for, seeking the Seekers. They have a thread that will twist and turn and wrap around the men who were given a promise of destruction. He has to answer the summons; he has to travel again by her side, to fight, to yearn, to dread..._  
  
'To dread?' Cassandra echoes, knitting her eyebrows as she tries to make sense of Cole's jumbled narrative.  
  
So... Spurred on by Warden Blackwall, Lavellan came up with the idea of slipping her these heart-shaped notes whenever she was not looking. Cole's hand in this would, of course, explain why the letters always seemed to weave themselves out of thin air.  
  
And the reason behind all this elaborate trickery was that... Lavellan was feeling ashamed of himself for... for wanting to pay her compliments? That he was embarrassed - just... like she herself...  
  
Prompted by Cassandra, Cole switches from describing the events before their expedition to Caer Oswin to explaining what happened afterwards, - in his own, cryptic way.  
  
_Dread - yes, dread. It is like falling down an endless shaft with walls of ice, heart beating fast and wild, then slow, slower, still..._  
  
_Her skin glows whiter than the snow in Haven when it was swallowed by stifling cold. There is blood on her lips and the void in her eyes; the blade cut her down, unstoppable like the wind that fells a tree... What if she never gets up again? What if he loses her?.._  
  
'Maker!' Cassandra mouths, pressing her hand against her throat.  
  
If Cole's ability to read thoughts is to be trusted - and he has delved into their minds before, much to the discomfort of Cassandra and many others - then it seems that Lavellan... Has been going through exact same circles of thought as she has! He has felt the same awkwardness, the same doubt, the same attachment, the same fear of loss... All this time, throughout all their adventures, they have been… falling in love with one another - and turned it all into an elaborate Orlesian dance with masks!  
  
Again, this realization makes her consider the little heart notes anew - and this time, as she scoops up the book and cradles it close to herself, she takes care to turn away from Dorian. The smile on her face feels most baffling even to herself - she cannot imagine how the Tevinter would comment if he saw it.  
  
'I am going to talk to that elf the moment he gets back from Crestwood,' she declares resolutely. 'I am going to tell him that I am not blind'.  
  
'It's about time,' Dorian concurs.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that I am not the best of writers when it comes to arranging stories chronologically, so here is a little timeline for a better understanding of my chaotic Cassandra/Lavellan story series:
> 
> 1\. Lavellan has a talk with Blackwall about his crush on Cassandra (see Chapter 7 of Muse-Quisition)
> 
> 2\. Lavellan decides to start sending Cassandra little anonymous Valentines, with Cole's help.
> 
> 3\. Lavellan tries to impress Cassandra by killing lots of high-level baddies (see Approval Seeker)
> 
> 4\. The gang goes to Crestwood for the first time and clears it of various monsters, including a dragon. To celebrate the latter fight, Bull throws a party at the Skyhold tavern; Lavellan gets drunk and starts blathering to Cassandra about his feelings for her, which she half-dismisses as delirium (see Beautiful)
> 
> 5\. On the morning after, a hungover Lavellan goes to Blackwall again and berates him for encouraging him to woo Cassandra. Their conversation is interrupted by a scout that has found the location of the missing Seekers for the Promise of Desctruction quest: Caer Oswin.
> 
> 6\. The gang goes to Caer Oswin, and Cassandra gets gravely wounded during the confrontation with Lord Seeker Lucius. Lavellan angsts. (see Beautiful)
> 
>  
> 
> 7\. Since the Inquisition hasn't met with Hawke and Stroud yet, Lavellan takes his party to Crestwood again, while leaving a convalescent Cassandra behind for her own protection.


End file.
